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Chapter Five
The Vatican, Zionism, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conf lict
Rosemary and Herman Ruether
Pre-Modern Attitudes to a Jewish Homeland
Jewish Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are modern issues of
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In ancient times a different po-
litical context shaped Christian attitudes toward Jews and the land of the
Bible. During the early centuries of Christianity the Holy Land remained in
the firm grip of the Roman Empire throughout its pre-Christian, its Con-
stantinian, and its post-Constantinian eras. The pagan emperor Hadrian
squelched the Jewish uprising known as the Bar Kokhba rebellion (132–35
CE) and prevented future Judean insurrections by banishing all Jews from
Jerusalem and Judea and rebuilding Jerusalem as a Roman city named Aelia
Capitolina, dotted with pagan temples, on the ruins of the former city. This
political development and, even more significantly, the destruction of the
Jewish Temple in the previous century (in 70 CE) provided ammunition for
Christian polemicists in debates with Judaism.1
As early as the first half of the second century, Justin Martyr pointed to
the Jews’ exile from their holy city as divine punishment upon them.2 Other
1. For detailed accounts of Roman destruction in response to Jewish uprisings (66–70 and 132–35 CE), see Armstrong, Jerusalem, 150–66.
2. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, quoted by Ruether, Faith and Fratricide,
Ruether the vatican, zionism, and the israeli-palestinian conflict 119
church fathers emphasized the Jews’ inability to practice their Temple rites
as proof of the divine termination of the Old Testament Covenant, and the
sufferings of the Jews as punishment for the death of Christ. John Chryso-
stom in the late fourth century utilized a gospel text, Luke 21:24, to declare
that by Christ’s own decree Jerusalem would be ruled by Gentiles until the
end of time.3
The Beginnings of Zionism
The traditional concept of permanent Jewish exile, having persisted from
Roman antiquity through the Middle Ages, began to be reinterpreted in
seventeenth-century English Protestant millennialism.4 This school of
thought, prevalent among English Puritans, emphasized the belief that
the redemption of the world was dawning in their own movement, which
would result in the reign of the true believers over the whole world. This re-
demption would include the conversion of the Jews, who would be gathered
into the Promised Land. For some this conversion would happen before
their restoration to the land, but for others it would happen only after they
returned to their land. But, in either case, the restoration of the Jews to their
land became a stock feature of millennialist Protestant views of a redemp-
tion of the world believed to be happening in their times.5
These beginnings of Christian Zionism took on further elaboration
in nineteenth-century Europe. British Evangelicals taught that the restora-
tion of the Jews to their land must be the first stage in the conversion of
the whole world to Christ and the establishment of peace and justice over
the earth. For Evangelical millennialists within the Anglican Church, such
as Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, this restoration of
the Jews would take place through the British Empire, which would be the
agent of a new reign of peace and justice on the earth. Lord Shaftesbury’s
Christian Zionism would be a spur to the decision of the Anglican Church
to create an Anglican bishopric of Jerusalem in 1841. A Jew converted to
Anglicanism, the Reverend Dr. Michael Solomon Alexander was selected to
148.
3. Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, 144–49, citing John Chrysostom, Discourses Against Judaizing Christians 5.1. The text of Luke 21:24: “. . . Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (RSV).
4. The term “millennialism” refers to a belief in a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth at the end of time. The adjective “premillennialist” describes a subset of millen-nialist believers who expect Christ to return before, rather than after, the thousand-year period.
Ruether the vatican, zionism, and the israeli-palestinian conflict 123
This response to the Zionist Congress by a leading Catholic journal reveals
that the ancient and medieval view of Jewish punishment through perma-
nent exile was still normative in Catholic thought in 1897.
Zionism remained a minority view among nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century Jews, most of whom embraced other options, religious
or secular. The American Jewish community, dominated by Reform Juda-
ism, even reacted with outrage when Christian Zionists in 1891 appealed to
President Harrison to support a renewed Jewish state in Palestine. Reform
Rabbis of the Pittsburgh conference responded by saying, “We consider
ourselves no longer a nation but a religious community, and therefore ex-
pect neither a return to Palestine nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of
Aaron nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.”
These American Jews saw in Christian Zionism a scheme for deportation
that threatened their status as United States citizens. For these Reform Jews,
Judaism was a universal religion of Jews who were citizens of many nations.
They even deleted the prayer for messianic restoration to Jerusalem from
their prayer book.16 Only with the outbreak of Nazi anti-Semitism in the
1930s and the systematic effort to exterminate Jews in Europe did the ma-
jority of Jews become converted to the support of Zionism in the 1940s.17
The Vatican became aware of Zionism at the time of the founding of
the World Zionist Organization in 1897. The pope may have read the nega-
tive reaction published in Civilta Catholica four months before the Con-
gress actually took place. Immediately after the Congress the pope issued
a circular letter protesting the idea that the Holy Places of Palestine might
be occupied by Jews. The apostolic delegate in Constantinople, Monsignor
Augusto Bonetti, was called to Rome to consult with the pope on “measures
to be taken against the Zionist movement.” The pope also consulted with
the French Foreign Ministry to oppose any changes that would give the Jews
occupation of the Holy Land. In addition he sent an envoy to the sultan in
Constantinople appealing to him not to give Palestine to the Jews.18
Herzl became aware of these negative Vatican responses to Zionism
through Italian and French newspapers after the Congress and immedi-
ately contacted the Vatican nuncio in Vienna for an audience. He hoped to
16. Rausch, Zionism, 88.
17. The postwar support for Zionism is being rethought by many Jews today in light of the conflict with the Palestinians, which is recognized as being rooted in Zionism as an ethnic-exclusive Jewish nationalism that has sought to eliminate the Palestinian people from the land claimed by Jews. For these Jews this exclusivist racial national-ism is seen as deeply contrary to Jewish values of justice. See Weiss, “It’s Time for the Media.”
Ruether the vatican, zionism, and the israeli-palestinian conflict 129
American support, the United Nations voted in 1947 for the partition of
Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Arabs rejected the partition,
as did the Vatican, while the Jews accepted it as the legal basis of a Jewish
state, although they did not endorse the limits of the territory assigned to
them in the plan.
As the British withdrew from the area in 1948, a war broke out between
the newly declared Jewish state and Arab armies from Jordan and Egypt.
The better organized and more determined Israelis soon pushed these Arab
armies aside and expanded into more than half of the lands assigned to the
Arabs, driving the residents of many Arab villages into exile. Jordan annexed
the remaining part of the West Bank, and Egypt occupied the remainder of
Gaza, causing the land designated for Arab state to disappear. A million Pal-
estinians became refugees,31 driven into the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan,
and Gaza. Israel also confiscated much of the Arab land in Israel, making
many of these Palestinians refugees as well. Contrary to Israeli claims that
the Palestinians “voluntarily” left, this was an intentional effort by the Israeli
leaders to clear as much of the land as possible of Palestinians.32
The Vatican quickly became heavily involved in humanitarian aid
to the Palestinian refugees, most of whom were Muslim. In June 1949 the
pope established the Pontifical Mission for Palestine, creating more than
270 social welfare centers that distributed food, clothing, and medicine to
the refugees and opening hundreds of schools for the children. Catholicism
thus became firmly committed to the Palestinian people as a whole, calling
for their repatriation and a just sharing of the land of Palestine between
Israel and the Palestinians. The Vatican also refused to give official recogni-
tion to the State of Israel, on the grounds that its territorial borders were
“undecided.” This stance would last until 1993, and in the following year
the Vatican also gave official recognition to the PLO as representative of the
Palestinian people.
In January 1964 Pope Paul VI made a major pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. It was the first time in history that a pope had personally confronted
the realities of the Palestinian situation and the politics of the Middle East.
He was able to see for himself the deep suffering and misery that displace-
ment and marginalization were imposing on the Palestinian people, and
this experience made a deep impression on him. He could see what their
needs were and determine what the Church’s humanitarian services should
31. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees was aiding one million registered refugees in 1949; Ruether and Ruether, Wrath of Jonah, 103.
32. For historical research on the Zionist agenda at that time, see Pappé, Ethnic Cleansing.
Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land130
include. Many of the pope’s later remarks and initiatives were shaped by his
experience at that time.33
After his pilgrimage the pope arranged with the Christian Brothers
to set up Bethlehem University, which exists today as a major educational
institution for Palestinians in the West Bank, the majority of whom were
and are Muslims.34 In October and November of 2006 Herman Ruether
spent considerable time in Bethlehem, especially at Bethlehem University,
and was impressed by the prevalence of Muslims at the school and their
warm identification with it. In 2010 Rosemary Ruether spent some days
visiting with families in a refugee camp in the Bethlehem area, all of whom
are Muslim. The young people in this camp spoke English fluently and were
able to interpret for us. They were proudly attending Bethlehem University.
In 1962 Pope John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council
(1962–65), which was subsequently continued after his death by Paul VI.
This council would have a major impact in church renewal and in the cre-
ation of a new relationship of the Catholic Church with social justice issues
worldwide. In consideration of the Holocaust, European delegates were very
anxious that the Council issue a major statement on Judaism, repudiating
anti-Semitism. Delegates from the Middle East, however, were worried that
such a statement would be seen as endorsing Zionism. The Vatican assured
them that this statement would be purely religious, not political. On Octo-
ber 15, 1965, on the eve of the final vote on the declaration, Paul VI even
personally assured Father Ibrahim Ayyad, a Roman Catholic priest deeply
committed to the Palestinians, that the Council “would not allow its deci-
sion to be exploited by the Israelis,” and the decision would not adversely
affect “the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”35
As a result, the statement on Judaism was rethought and recast more
broadly in the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian
Religions (Nostra Aetate, October 28, 1965), which included Hinduism,
Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism.36 This declaration did not attack or criticize
any of these religions, but rather lifted up what was regarded as positive
aspects of each of them, in an ascending order, with Islam and Judaism seen
as closest to Christianity.
Concerning Islam, the declaration said of Muslims, “They adore the
one God . . . merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth
33. Kreutz, Vatican Policy, 114.
34. Irani, The Papacy and the Middle East, 32.
35. Kreutz, Vatican Policy, 119.
36. The declaration can be found on the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html. The words quoted from it below are drawn from sections 3 and 4.
Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land132
Another important development of the Vatican II period, although
independent of the Council’s declarations, were papal declarations on
behalf of global social justice. On April 11, 1963, Pope John XXIII issued
the encyclical Pacem in Terris (On Establishing Universal Peace in Truth,
Justice, Charity, and Liberty).37 The foundation of well-ordered societies, ac-
cording to the encyclical, is the principle that every person is endowed by
nature with intelligence and free will and has rights and obligations flowing
from this nature that are universal and inviolable and cannot be in any way
surrendered.
Human rights, according to this encyclical, include the rights to life,
to bodily integrity, to the means suitable for the development of life, food,
clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and social services. There is also the
right to security, in cases of sickness, inability to work, widowhood, old age,
unemployment, and any other case that deprives a person of the means of
subsistence. Persons should be free to choose their state of life and have the
right to set up a family, with equal rights and duties for men and women.
They have a right not only to work, but to go about work without coercion.
This right includes working conditions where physical health or morals are
not endangered. All humans have the rights of private property, of assembly
and association, of movement and residence in their country, of emigration
to another country, and of participation in public affairs, as well as juridical
protection of these rights.
The pope then goes on to comment upon the emergence of various
groups of oppressed people, including the working classes, women, and
colonized nations, all of whom should share equally in such human rights.
For example, on women he says, “Women are gaining an increasing aware-
ness of their natural dignity. Far from being content with a purely passive
role or allowing themselves to be regarded as a kind of instrument, they are
demanding both in domestic and in public life the rights and duties which
belong to them as human persons.” Especially relevant to the Palestinian
plight are the pope’s remarks on refugees:
The deep feelings of paternal love for all mankind which God
has implanted in Our heart makes it impossible for Us to view
without bitter anguish of spirit the plight of those who for politi-
cal reasons have been exiled from their own homelands. There
are great numbers of such refugees at the present time, and many
are the sufferings—the incredible sufferings—to which they are
37. The encyclical Pacem in Terris is on the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_xxiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem_en.html. The words quoted from it below are drawn from paragraphs 41, 103, 105, and 172.
Ruether the vatican, zionism, and the israeli-palestinian conflict 133
constantly exposed. . . . [I]t is not irrelevant to draw the atten-
tion of the world to the fact that these refugees are persons and
all their rights as persons must be recognized. Refugees cannot
lose these rights simply because they are deprived of citizenship
of their own States.
The encyclical is addressed not only to the priests and leaders of the Catho-
lic Church but to all “men of good will.”
This stirring document was followed by an insightful encyclical from
Paul VI dated March 26, 1967, namely, Populorum Progressio (On the Devel-
opment of Peoples).38 This document is addressed particularly to the needs
of developing nations emerging from colonialism. The pope cites his experi-
ences of traveling to Latin America, Africa, India, and Palestine as ground-
ing his concerns on this issue. These nations need more than political
independence. The disparity between rich and poor nations must be over-
come. Here the pope even endorses the right to expropriate landed estates
from the wealthy when they are “unused or poorly used, bring hardship to
peoples, or are detrimental to the interests of the country,” and when this
serves the “common good.” “Unbridled liberalism” (laissez-faire capitalism),
in which private property is seen as having no limits or social obligations,
is condemned, in the phrase that Paul VI quotes here from his predecessor
Pius XI, as an expression of the “international imperialism of money.”
Generally the pope calls for transformations of these situations through
reform rather than violent revolution, although acknowledging that some-
times revolution is necessary when there is “long-standing tyranny.” He
calls for world powers “to set aside part of their military expenditures for
a world fund to relieve the needs of impoverished peoples.” In this remark-
able encyclical, which goes on for many pages, the Holy See takes the side
of developing nations vis-à-vis the rich and powerful nations of the world.
By mentioning Palestine along with India, Africa, and Latin America, he
includes the Palestinian people among those whose needs should be ad-
dressed by the whole world.
After the Second Vatican Council the Holy See began to grant audi-
ences to leaders of the State of Israel. In January 1973 Pope Paul VI met with
Golda Meir; this was the first time a pope had met with an Israeli Prime
Minister. A communiqué issued immediately after this meeting said that
the pope,
38. The encyclical Populorum Progressio is on the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_26031967_popu-lorum_en.html. The words quoted from it below are drawn from sections 24, 26, 31, and 51.
Ruether the vatican, zionism, and the israeli-palestinian conflict 135
Patriarch was held by Westerners. Thus the appointment of a Palestinian as
Latin Patriarch changed the official face of Roman Catholics in Israel and
Palestine.
Born and educated in Palestine, Michel Sabbah held the position of
General Director of the Roman Catholic schools in the region and subse-
quently that of President of Bethlehem University. As Latin Patriarch, an
office he held for twenty years (1988–2008), he represented the Vatican
and served as the spiritual leader of all Catholic Christians in Israel and
Palestine. He has spoken out strongly for Palestinian human rights, the end
of occupation, the return of the refugees, and a two-state solution.43 His
successor, Fouad Twal (2008 to the present), is also a Palestinian and has
continued this call for Palestinian rights, the end of the Wall and the check-
points, and a Palestinian state. Thus the Latin Patriarchate has become an
insistent voice for Palestinian rights.
The United States, with Israel, has boycotted any direct relations with
the PLO, labeling it a “terrorist organization.” This view, however, became
increasingly isolated from the world at large. The Vatican, along with most
nations, recognized the PLO as the national representative of the Palestin-
ians. On December 30, 1993, the Vatican moved to grant a “fundamental
agreement” with the State of Israel, officially recognizing it and clarifying
the rights of the Church in that country. Specifically named are the Church’s
rights to educational, health care, and media organizations as well as respect
for the status quo of the Holy Places, Catholic institutions, and the promo-
tion of pilgrimages in Israel.44
To make clear that the Holy See had in no way backed away from
its commitment to the rights of the Palestinians, less than a year later, on
October 26, 1994, the Vatican met with Palestinian representatives and
entered into official relations with the PLO. The agreement calls for “a just
and comprehensive peace in the Middle East . . . and a peaceful solution
to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which could realize the inalienable na-
tional legitimate rights . . . of the Palestinian people.” The PLO affirmed the
equality before the law of the three monotheistic faiths in Jerusalem and
its “permanent commitment to uphold and observe the human rights to
freedom of religion and conscience, as stated in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.” The Holy See, in turn, affirmed its own commitment to
43. See Sabbah, Faithful Witness, with its biographical introduction by Christiansen and Sarsar.
44. Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel (1993), at http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFA-Archive/1993/Pages/Fundamental%20Agreement%20-%20Israel-Holy%20See.aspx.